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Two-thirds of the city funding set aside to ease the financial burdens of the Winston Weaver Fertilizer plant fire was never distributed to residents. An update provided Wednesday at a community meeting marking the one-year anniversary of the fire raised questions about outreach efforts. In the weeks after the crisis, $1 million was set aside to reimburse residents who were forced to cover the costs of the multi-day evacuation. The city of Winston-Salem chose the nonprofit Experiment in Self-Reliance (ESR) without a formal bid process to manage and distribute the fund.
In the year since the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant fire, five lawsuits have been filed against the company alleging negligence. A lawyer representing one plaintiff says hopes of a class action suit are temporarily stalled. The suits allege that the Winston Weaver Company failed to safely store dangerous chemicals and did not follow industry rules designed to prevent and mitigate fires, among other things.
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is recruiting participants for a study examining the health impacts of the Winston Weaver Fertilizer Plant fire, which forced mass evacuations in Winston-Salem nearly one year ago. The study was prompted by concerns from residents about the fire’s physical and emotional health effects, according to Dr. Callie Brown, the study’s principal investigator. She and her colleagues attended several community meetings after the fire, and she says they found there was a clear desire for more research to be done.
"If we had to do it all over again, we would've done a mandatory evacuation and we would have declared a state of emergency," fire Chief Trey Mayo said.